Maria Mena

Biography

Maria Viktoria Mena (* February 19th 1986) is a Norwegian pop musician.
Maria Mena started her career in 2002 when she was just 16 years old with the help of her father, who is also a musician. Her first album was called “Another Phase” and was released in her home country of Norway.
Upon releasing her first album, Maria gained some experience in the US music industry where she performed ton David Letterman’s Late Show amongst other places to promote her first international record “White Turns Blue”. She managed to enter the international single charts with her hit song “You’re the Only One”.
Maria released her second record, “Mellow”, March 2004 in Norway where the record achieved gold status.
“Apparently Unaffected” was released to critical acclaim in 2005 in both Norway and several European countries. The album gained a nomination for the Norwegian Grammy, “Spellemannprisen”, for ‘Best Female Artist’, ‘Best Hit’, and ‘Best Music Video’.
With her single “Just Hold Me”, Maria managed to land a spot in the top 20 in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria for the first time. The album sold over 250,000 times in Germany and achieved gold status. Even today, the song can still be heard on the radio from time to time.
Maria toured the Netherlands for the first time in 2006. Most of her concerts were sold out for this tour. She also performed for the “Live Earth Concert” in Hamburg in the summer of 2007 and went on tour in Germany for the first time in the fall of 2007. Maria received an award for ‘Best New Pop Act’ from the German radio station SWR3 in the same year.
Another German tour followed in the spring of 2008 that also had a few concerts in Switzerland and Austria. She was crowned ‘Newcomer International’ by Radio Regenbogen and also received an Echo nomination in the category of ‘Best Newcomer International’.
In the fall of 2008, Maria released her fourth record, “Cause and Effect”, for which she received the Spellemannprisen in the category of ‘Best Female Artist’ in Norway. The record achieved platinum status in both Germany and Norway as well as gold status in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria.
“Cause and Effect” was Maria’s first album which followed an overall theme. Her aim was to express her past and the things that have made her the person she is today. Her first single of the album was “All This Time” with which she again managed to place in the top 20 in several European countries.
2009 was spent on the road for Maria. She went on tour in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Norway.
When Norway was hit by tragedy in June of 2011, Maria’s previously recorded version of the Norwegian folk song “Mit Lille Land” became an anthem. She performed the song during the commemoration in the dome church of Oslo.
Maria’s fifth album, “Viktoria”, was released in the fall of 2011. The title of the album is also Maria’s middle name which her mother gave her when she was 10 years old. No one ever called her Maria Viktoria Mena, but after her last album, Maria felt she had become a calmer, more understanding person and thought that maybe this was Viktoria. The album portrays another step in life and a reconciliation with her past.
In the following spring of 2012, Maria toured Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Norway with her new album.
On July 14th 2012, Maria married her longtime boyfriend, Eivind.
In the same year, Maria collaborated with the internationally known band Madcon and produced the song “Fåkke Fly Bort” as well as with the Norwegian artist Lidolido with whom she worked on the song “Colder”.
Just a little after her last tour, Maria returned with “Fuck You”, a single from her upcoming Album. The song had a very different tone and style than previous released material and tackles the subject of online mobbing. It was inspired by mean comments on social media platforms. Two months later, she released her second single from the album, “I Always Liked That”, which also had the lyric that served as the title for her new album: Weapon in Mind. The release marked a new musical style for Maria as she collaborated with hip-hop producers amongst others. Despite the new sound, the lyrics are still as sharp and poetic as ever. She explained the album in an interview with the official fan club: youtube.com/watch?v6XkWn5mKjxQ
Maria toured Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland in the following months and added an acoustic tour in the winter of 2014/2015. She also performed at several Norwegian festivals in the following summer while working on a new album, which she released in the early winter of 2015.
Her seventh record is called “Growing Pains” and was released on December 4th 2015. The first single “I Don’t Wanna See You With Her” was released on November 6th 2015. In many of the songs of the album, Maria worked through her divorce from her husband Eivind.
In December of 2015, Maria was part of the concert series “Night of the Proms”, which played in 17 German cities and played over 20 concerts. In the spring she started the Growing Pains Tour.